“You do not like Americans?” Fawley asked softly.
“I hate them.”
“Perhaps that is to be understood,” Fawley observed. “Unfortunately, I am in the same position with regard to Germans—of your type. I don’t exactly see what we can do about it.”
There was a tense silence for a moment. Outside in the restaurant the music, too, had paused. It was as though every one had recognised the fact that there was trouble afoot. One of the younger men in the group stepped forward and tendered his card to Fawley. The latter made no movement towards taking it.
“Sir,” the intervener declared, “you have insulted one who does me the honour to regard me as a friend. You insult me also if you refuse my card.”
“What am I to do with your card?” Fawley asked.
“You give me yours,” the other replied, with a flash in his eyes. “By to-morrow morning you will know.”
Fawley accepted the card, tore it in two and flung the pieces from him.
“It is time the world had finished with such theatrical trash,” he observed calmly. “I happen to have earned the right to refuse to fight with any one, as you can see for yourself, if you consult an American army list. In the meantime, I suggest that you allow me to take the Princess to her table and I will return to discuss the matter with you.”
Elida passed her hand through his arm. She knew most of these men who had entered and she was very determined that Fawley should leave with her.
“Since you have reminded me of our relationship,” she said, turning towards the man who had first addressed her, “let me beg you, for the sake of your name, to avoid anything like a brawl. Major Fawley is a distinguished guest and I believe a well-wisher of your country.”
The music outside was still silent but there was a curious shuffling of feet upon the dancing floor. The main curtain was abruptly thrown back, a party of the young men who had followed Behrling into the restaurant made their appearance. They entered quietly, without any sign or word of menace, but they were a formidable-looking body as they ranged themselves around the bar. By some manoeuvre, or it may have been by chance, they spread themselves out between Elida and her angry relative. In dead silence, although to the accompaniment of a cloud of evil looks, Fawley and his companion passed out of the room.
CHAPTER XVII
Table of Contents
Almost before they had stepped on to the dancing floor, the shock came. There was the sound of a shrill, penetrating whistle from a distant corner, two sharp revolver shots, and within another second the whole room was enveloped in darkness. For a moment or two the music continued, the dancers swayed against one another, a moving phalanx of half-laughing, half-terrified humanity, groping their way through the perfumed obscurity. Then a woman’s hysterical cry following those two reports struck a note of fear. Somewhere in the middle of the floor a woman fainted, calling out wildly as she collapsed…A powerful hand gripped Fawley’s arm, a man’s voice whispered in his ear:
“I lead you. Hold my wrist and the Princess.”
Fawley for a moment hesitated. It was obvious that there was some sort of trouble on hand. Elida whispered in his ear.
“It is Gustaf who speaks. Do anything he says.”
Behind them in the darkness was the sound of something which was like a concerted movement—the steady shuffling of purposeful feet. From the corner near where they had been seated and in the vicinity of which the two shots had been fired, they could hear the low moaning of a wounded man. Some one on the dancing floor lit a match and thrust the tiny flame almost into the faces of the man and woman by his side, only to blow it out quickly, as though he realised that the two were not the people whom he sought. Fawley hesitated no longer. With his arm still around Elida, he suffered himself to be led between the tables towards the side exit and down a passage leading into the street. Underneath the flare of an electric standard a line of cars was ranged along the curb. Gustaf opened the door of one and literally pushed them inside. The car moved off at once. A familiar voice greeted them from the corner.
“My dear Princess and Major Fawley, I owe you the most profound apologies. Gustaf is in despair. His restaurant has practically been seized by the members of a political party who would be delighted to involve me in a scandal—or worse.”
“We heard shots,” Fawley remarked.
“They were meant for me,” Behrling said grimly. “Gustaf had a secret message and he hurried me off. It is not for myself I fear. It is for the cause.”
“Who was responsible for putting out the light?” Elida asked.
“An asinine crowd of young bloods,” Behrling replied contemptuously, “all blindly following that middle-aged roué. As a matter of fact, it was the best thing that could happen for us. Gustaf was able the easier to manoeuvre our departure. By the by, Fawley, if this is going to be the bad night that they threatened us with, what about putting you down at your Embassy?”
Fawley shook his head.
“Sorry,” he regretted. “For the moment I am not engaged in my country’s interests. I can claim no privileges.”
“You are not by any chance in disgrace with your own people?” Behrling asked curiously.
“Not in the least,” Fawley assured him. “I simply asked for a job, found there was nothing doing, and took on a mission of observation for a friendly power.”
Behrling nodded.
“What happened in the bar?” he asked abruptly.
“Nothing really happened,” Fawley replied, with a smile. “Nothing except threats, that is to say. A gentleman of the student type offered me his card and reminded me of the ancient institution of duelling.”
“What did you do with it?”
“He tore it up,” Elida intervened.
Behrling nodded approval.
“In the new Germany,” he muttered, “there will be no duels. The blood of every citizen will be needed for the nation.”
“You think that there will be war?” Fawley asked.
Behrling peered curiously through the obscurity of the vehicle.
“Is that not already determined upon? There may be war and unless Berati makes the one unpardonable mistake, the map of Europe will be altered. I have no more to say. Here is your destination. You have made me no promises, Major Fawley. You have spoken no word of approval. You have given me no hint as to where your sympathies lie. Yet I have a feeling of satisfaction. I am glad that we have met.”
He shook hands warmly. Fawley turned to make his adieux to Elida. She too, however, was preparing to descend.
“I am staying with my aunt, who has a suite here,” she explained.
Behrling leaned forward from his corner.
“Before we meet again, Major Fawley,” he prophesied, “there will be a great change in this city—in this country. You are here now in these terrifying moments before the storm, when the air is sulphurous and overcharged with the thunders to come. You will find us a saner country when you return.”
* * * * *
There was the sound of music and many voices as they arrived on the fourth floor. At the end of the corridor was a vision of bowing servants and beyond, rooms banked with flowers and waving palms. Elida gave one look and stepped swiftly back into the lift.
“I cannot bear it,” she told Fawley. “My aunt receives her political friends on Thursday evenings and to-night they are all there in force. I can hear their voices even here. They will tear themselves to pieces before they have finished. There must be, it seems, a hundred different ways of saving Germany and every one of my aunt’s friends has hold of a different plan. Let me come and sit with you for a few minutes. I heard the waiter say that he had placed a note in your salon, so I feel that I may come without compromising you.”
“By all means,” Fawley assented. “My sitting room is not much, but from the window one has at least a fine view of the city. Come with the greatest pleasure, but,” he went on, as they stepped out of the lift and he fitted the key in the door of h
is suite, “do let us leave politics alone for a time. My sympathies are of no use to any one. I cannot turn them into action.”
She sighed as she followed him into the rooms and allowed her cloak to slip from her shoulders.
“It is too bad,” she lamented, “because there was never a time in her history when Germany more needed the understanding of intelligent Anglo-Saxons. So this is where you live?”
He smiled.
“For a few hours longer,” he reminded her. “I am off to-morrow.”
“To Rome?”
He remained silent for a moment.
“In these days of long-distance telephones and wireless, a poor government messenger never knows where he will be sent.”
He picked up the despatch which lay upon the table and, after a questioning glance towards her, opened it. He read it carefully then tore it into small pieces.
“Your plans are changed?” she asked.
“Only confirmed,” he answered. “Come and sit before the window and look down at this beautiful city. We have an idea in America, you know, or rather we used to have, when I was interested in politics, that in order to bring about a state of bankruptcy in Berlin, the people beautified their city, built new boulevards, new public buildings, and then failed to pay the interest on their loans!”
“It is probably true,” Elida assented. “That was all before I took any interest in this part of the world. To-day Germany is on her feet again, her hands are uplifted, she is feeling for the air. She is trying to drag down from the heavens the things that belong to her. Germany has a great future, you know, Major Fawley.”
“No one doubts that,” he replied.
She looked around the room curiously and last of all at him, at his drawn but wholesome-looking face, his deep-set visionary eyes, his air of immense self-control. She took note of all the other things which appeal to a woman, the little wave in his hair brushed back by the ears, the humorous lines about his firm mouth. He possessed to the fullest extent the distinction of the class to which they both belonged.
“Do you mind if I become very personal for a few moments?” she asked abruptly.
“So long as you do not find too much fault with me.”
“The men in the Secret Service, whom I have come across,” she began, “our Italian Secret Service, I mean, of course, and the French, travel under false names, generally assuming a different status to their real one. They travel with little luggage, they stay in weird hotels in streets that no one ever heard of, and life for them seems to be filled with a desire to escape from their own personality. Here are you staying in the best-known hotel in Berlin under your own name, wearing the clothes and using the speech of your order. There on your writing table is your dressing case fitted with an ordinary lock and with your name in full stamped upon it. I begin to think that you must be a fraud. I should not be surprised to find that your proper name even was inscribed in the hotel register.”
“Guilty to everything,” he confessed, pushing his chair a little nearer to hers and closer to the window. “But then you must remember that the Secret Service of the old order has gone out. The memoirs writer and the novelist have given away our fireworks. We are only subtle now by being terribly and painfully obvious.”
“You may be speaking the truth,” she murmured, “but it seems to me that it must be a dangerous experiment. I could recall to myself the names of at least a dozen people who know that a Major Fawley is here on behalf of a certain branch of the Italian Government to see for himself and report upon the situation. It would be worth the while of more than one of them to make sure that you never returned to Rome.”
“There are certain risks to be run, of course,” he admitted. “The only point is that I came to the conclusion some years ago that one runs them in a more dignified fashion and with just as much chance of success by abandoning the old methods.”
She sat perfectly silent for some time. They were both looking downwards at the thronged and brilliantly lit streets, the surging masses of human beings, listening to the hoarse mutterings of voices punctuated sometimes with the shouting of excited pedestrians. There was a certain tenseness underneath it all. The trampling of feet upon the pavement was like the breaking of an incoming tide. One had the idea of mighty forces straining at a yielding leash. Elida swung suddenly around.
“You play the game of frankness wonderfully,” she said bitterly, “but there are times when you fall down.”
“As for instance?”
“When you make enquiries of the concierge about the air services to Rome. When you send for a time-table to compare the trains and when you slip into the side entrance at Cook’s in the twilight an hour or so later and take your ticket for England!”
“You have had me followed?” he asked.
“It has been necessary,” she told him. “What has England to do with your report to Berati?”
His eyes seemed to be watching the black mass of people below, but he smiled reflectively.
“What an advertisement this last coup of yours is for the open methods of diplomacy,” he observed. “Would it surprise you very much to know that I can take the night plane to Croydon, catch the International Airways to Rome, and be there a little quicker than any way I have discovered yet of sailing over the Alps?”
“Will you turn your head and look at me, please?”
He obeyed at once.
“You are not going to London, then?” she persisted. “Berati has abandoned that old idea of his of seeking English sympathies?”
Fawley rose to his feet and Elida’s heart sank. She knew very well that during the last few minutes, ever since, in fact, she had confessed to her surveillance over him, she had lost everything she had striven so hard to gain. Her bid for his supreme confidence had failed. Before she actually realised what had happened, she was moving towards the door. He was speaking meaningless words; his tone, his expression had changed. All the humanity seemed to have left his face. Even the admiration which had gleamed more than once in his eyes and the memory of which she had treasured all the evening had become the admiration of a man for an attractive doll.
“You are under your own roof,” he remarked, as he opened the door. “You will forgive me if I do not offer to conduct you to your aunt’s apartment?”
He bent over her cold fingers.
“Why are you angry with me?” she asked passionately.
He looked at her with a gleam of sadness in his eyes, the knob of the door in his hand.
“My dear Elida,” he expostulated, “you know very well that the only feeling I dare permit myself to have for you is one of sincere admiration.”
CHAPTER XVIII
Table of Contents
His Excellency the Marchese Marius di Vasena, Ambassador from Italy to the Court of St. James’s, threw himself back in his chair and held out his hands to his unexpected visitor with a gesture of astonishment. He waved his secretary away. It had really been a very anxious week and this was a form of relaxation which appealed to him.
“Elida!” he exclaimed, embracing his favourite niece. “What on earth does this mean? I saw pictures of you last week with all the royalties at Monte Carlo. Has your aunt any idea?”
“Not the slightest,” Elida laughed.
“But how did you arrive?”
“Oh, I just came,” she replied. “I did not arrive direct. I had some places to visit on the way. As a matter of fact, I left Monte Carlo a fortnight ago. Yesterday I was in Paris but I had a sudden feeling that I must see you, dear Uncle. So here I am!”
“And the need for all this haste?” the Ambassador asked courteously, as he arranged an easy-chair for his niece. “If one could only believe that it was impatience to see your elderly but affectionate relative!”
She laughed—a soft rippling effort of mirth.
“I am always happy to see you, my dear Uncle, that you know,” she assured him. “That is why I was so unhappy when you were given London. Yesterday, however, a great d
esire swept over me.”
“And that was—?”
“To attend the American Ambassador’s dance to-night at Dorrington House. I simply could not resist it. Aunt will not mind. You are going to be very good-natured and take me—yes?”
The smile faded from the Ambassador’s face.
“I suppose that can easily be arranged,” he admitted. “It will not be a very gay affair, though. In diplomatic circles, it is rather our close season.”
Elida—she was certainly a very privileged niece—leaned forward and drew out one of the drawers of her uncle’s handsome writing table. She helped herself to a box of cigarettes and lit one.
“Yet they tell me,” she confided, “I heard it even in Monte Carlo, that just now England or Washington—no one is certain which; perhaps both—are busy forging thunderbolts.”
“No news of it has come my way,” the Ambassador declared, with a benevolent smile. “If one were ever inclined to give credence to absurd rumours, one would look rather nearer home for trouble.”
She leaned over and patted his cheek.
“Dear doyen of all the diplomats, it is not you who would tell your secrets to a little chatterbox of a niece! It seems a pity, for I love being interested.”
“Carissima,” he murmured, “to-night at Dorrington House you will find ten or a dozen terribly impressionable young Americans, two or three of them quite fresh from Washington. You will find English statesmen even, who have the reputation of being sensitive to feminine charms such as yours and who have not the accursed handicap of being your uncle. You will find my own youthful staff of budding diplomats, who all imagine that they have secrets locked away in their bosoms far more wonderful than any which have been confided to me. You will be in your glory, dear Elida, and if you find out anything really worth knowing about these thunderbolts, do not forget your poor relations!”
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